First,
some slightly complicated catalogue matters. This is a straight
reissue, at a lower price, of SMK60004, issued at mid-price
some ten years ago. In fact, the matrix number suggests that
the disc has not been re-mastered but has simply been re-pressed
with a new label and catalogue number. The Violin Concerto
and the Adagio (this time under Bernstein) are also still
available on another mid-price CD, 5162352 (formerly SMK63088),
coupled with works by Copland, Ives and William Schuman.
A third coupling on yet another mid-price Sony CD with the
Violin and Piano Concertos (as here) combined with Yo-Yo
Ma’s account of the Cello Concerto, is on SMK89751.

Having heard
the Barber Violin Concerto at the Proms, many people will
currently be looking for a recommendable CD version. This
concerto, which rapidly established itself as one of the
minor masterpieces of the 20th-century repertoire,
received a fine performance at that Prom from James Ehnes
and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop,
a combination which is, sadly, unlikely ever to find its
way onto CD: Naxos already have an Alsop recording of the
work, with Buswell and the RSNO (8.559044): given generally
favourable reviews by Rob
Barnett and John
Phillips here on Musicweb. Ehnes, too, has
recorded the work for Onyx Classics, ONYX4016, coupled with
Korngold and Walton and very favourably reviewed all round: Kevin
Sutton and Michael Cookson made
it a Recording of the Month.

For many this
version by Isaac Stern, at its new bargain price and generously
coupled, will seem an ideal purchase: Rob Barnett maintained
his allegiance to its incarnation with the Piano and Cello
Concertos. Having owned it, coupled as here with John Browning’s
recording of the Piano Concerto, long ago on a CBS Classics
LP, I decided to see how it was holding up well into its
fourth decade.

Both concertos
were recorded in 1964, at a time when it was almost mandatory
for American recordings to spotlight the soloist: however
carefully the recording is re-mastered, there is little that
can be done about this. The problem with these recordings
is that the master-tape clearly also places the orchestras,
especially the NYPO in the Violin Concerto, too forward,
so that the sound reaches the listener in a largely undifferentiated
bloc. The only thing to be grateful for is that I understand
that the sound on the alternative Schuman coupling is a degree
more forward still.

As I remember,
the LP version added a degree of distortion to the mix which,
thankfully, is not present on the CD. I did, however, initially
forget that I had turned the volume a little higher than
normal to accommodate a recording which I had just played
which required this. At this higher volume the sound, while
not distorted, was very hard and I began to think it little
improved on its LP appearance; it was only when I started
the CD again at a slightly lower volume than my norm that
it began to sound satisfactory and even then it sounded harsher
than the Radio 3 broadcast from the Proms. Once again, I’d
like to thank the BBC engineers for listening to all of us
who tried to persuade them this time last year that 160kbps
was not enough for digital music broadcasting; they finally
restored Radio 3 to 192kbps, which is at least adequate,
though still less than those same engineers once said would
be ideal.

I have already
indicated my disappointment that Ehnes and Alsop together
are unlikely ever to make a commercial version of the Barber,
since the performance was so fine – bringing out the late-romantic
elements, especially in the first movement, without ever
sounding schmaltzy. I certainly did not share the
feeling of one reviewer that the performance was lacking
in wistful introspection. Marin Alsop was, of course, a Bernstein
protégé so it is not surprising that the tempi for the Proms
performance were very similar to the Stern/Bernstein recording – very
slightly broader, if anything, but that impression is probably
partly due to the fact that the broadcast allowed a greater
degree of hushed intensity in the Andante than does
the up-front Sony recording, which is especially off-putting
in this movement. (I note that some reviewers who were actually
in the Albert Hall commented on the soft-grained string sound
in the Andante, so it was not just a characteristic
of the broadcast.) Even in the Finale, where the performance
was suitably sparkling, there was a sense of something held
in reserve until the whole thing was brought to a rousing
conclusion. Ehnes never allowed virtuosity to become showy
or to stand in the way of a truly musical experience and
the support which he received from the Bournemouth SO and
Alsop was outstanding.

Of course,
everything that can be said of Ehnes is true of Stern also:
it is almost axiomatic that his, the first stereo performance,
set the benchmark for all later versions. I should be very
surprised if Ehnes had not listened to Stern, who fully deserves
all the adjectives which have been showered on his playing:
soulful, inspired, superlative, warm and humane, to mention
but a few. It may even be that the New York Phil played as
softly as the Bournemouth SO in the Andante – it’s
just that the forward recording doesn’t allow us to hear
if this is so. When one reviewer speaks of this movement
on the Sony recording as glorious, I cannot demur, but I
have to listen imaginatively through the recording
to hear it.

This was the
first-ever recording of the Piano Concerto – Browning was
its dedicatee – and it has stood the test of time well as
a performance: in fact, there has been very little competition – by
general consent Browning’s own RCA remake with Slatkin did
not match it, lacking the fire of this version with Szell,
despite the more modern (1990) recording. That remake is
currently available at mid-price with the Violin and Cello
Concertos on 82876 65832 2 or on a bargain-price 2-CD set,
74321 98704 2, a Bargain of the Month (John Quinn,
May 2004.)

If anything
the recording here is harder than that of the Violin Concerto
at normal volume or higher but, fortunately, in this tougher,
less lyrical work a forward recording, with the piano almost
spotlit, does less to detract from the strength of the performance.
The mini-cadenza for the piano at the opening sets the tougher
tone; it is not until some two minutes after the orchestra
has joined in that there are moments of lyricism – and even
these are punctuated. The recording captures the muted strings
in the Canzone second movement better than in the Andante of
the Violin Concerto, though in the louder passages of the
Piano Concerto the upper strings sound somewhat glassy.

Hubert Culot,
reviewing the Naxos version (Prutsman/RNSO/Alsop on 8.559133)
advocated abandoning Browning – “in spite of his dedicated
advocacy, I have always felt that this was Barber’s weakest
concerto” – for the new recording: a Musicweb Disc of the
Month in December 2002.

The other works
on the CD receive very good performances under Ormandy and
Schippers and the recordings are all more than adequate.
The Adagio for Strings follows rather too hard on
the heels of the Piano Concerto for my liking – and many
collectors will already have umpteen versions of this ubiquitous
work. The Overture to The School for Scandal is a
substantial work – it was the piece which first established
Barber’s reputation – but the Second Essay is the
most substantial of these fillers.

Final recommendations?
Apart from the RCA single CD or 2-CD set, there are no other
couplings of the two concertos. As well as the Buswell/Alsop
and Ehnes versions of the Violin Concerto listed above, there
are several recommendable recent recordings in the catalogue,
of which perhaps Joshua Bell with the Baltimore SO under
Zinman, coupled with the Walton concerto and Bloch’s Baal
Shem, is probably the finest (reissued at mid-price on
Decca Originals 475 7710, confusingly also at a slightly
higher price on Decca Awards 476 1723. NB the Penguin Guide
gives the wrong number for this CD.) Despite my reservations,
I shall still keep this Sony recording with Stern and Browning
as my prime reference for the two concertos, but do look
at all the reviews to which I have included hyperlinks before
you decide.

Alsop and the
Bournemouth SO also gave an excellent performance – minor
fluffs, inevitable in a live performance, apart – of the
Copland Third Symphony in the same Prom concert, which may
have inspired some to look for a good version of this work,
too. Oddly enough, for such a popular piece, there are not
all that many options. My own favourite versions – Mata on
EMI and Bernstein on DG or Sony – appear to have been deleted,
leaving only two versions available. Järvi on Chandos (with
Roy Harris’s evocative Third Symphony) received some less-than-enthusiastic
reviews in some quarters, leaving only James Judd with the
New Zealand SO on Naxos 8.559106, coupled with Billy the
Kid – an extremely convincing performance according to
William Hedley’s review. Perhaps someone will get round to reissuing Copland’s
own Everest recording with the LSO, my own introduction to
this symphony in its World Record Club incarnation. I note
that William Hedley similarly treasures memories of an early-1970s
concert in which Copland conducted the LSO, so it probably
isn’t just a case of distance lending enchantment.

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